We’ve been sans cable for three days now. Three whole days of television silence, broken only by the occasional DVD of Aladdin or Chicken Little, and can I just say I would not be sad if I never had to watch either of those movies again, ever? I may leave them down where the baby can get them by “accident” just so the option’s closed. Guh.

I think I miss the cable more than the baby does. He seems mildly put out that I haven’t offered to put on Jack’s Big Music Show lately, but other than that he doesn’t seem to even notice that there’s nothing on the TV screen. Mama, on the other hand? Feels like a crack addict. I haven’t had my Scrubs fix in days, and yes, I am aware that Zach Braff does the voice of Chicken Little, and no, that does not make it better. (Though I did keep expecting Chicken Little to yell “Banana hammock!” at several points during the movie.)

The lack of television coupled with the sleep training thing is all blessing and curse, and I will tell you why. First, it is good, because much of the reason the baby was staying up so late was because it was so easy for mama to hang out with him while she watched Adult Swim and crocheted. Now there is nothing to distract the baby from sleeping or the mama from letting him. Then, it is bad, because there is nothing to distract the mama from the myriad worries flitting in and out of her head like a swarm of moths. Related note: I have a moth phobia. Also spiders, but that’s neither here nor there. Again, the not having TV thing is good because I am not parking said kidlet in front of it during the day while I work or do school. Likewise, it is a nightmare because I get NOTHING done, oh my god, the nothing I get done is STAGGERING in its nothingness, especially on days like today when I have a deadline and an article I have to write and a child who is just bored and does not want to play quietly while mama compiles data.

But, yes. It evens out. << I typed that, and then the baby began to wail. He’d been asleep for all of 30 minutes, and I have spent the last hour upstairs with him while he alternately screamed inconsolably and clung to me like a barnacle while refusing to fall back asleep. I sang. I told stories. I rocked. I nursed. But the baby is so freaked out by the idea of sleeping alone that he will literally startle himself awake every time he drifts off, just so I won’t leave. It’s heartbreakingly sweet and desperately frustrating all at the same time.

I know what you’re saying. You’re saying what a horrible mother, and then you’re holding that thought because baby, awake. Again.

Okay. Where was I? Oh yes: What a horrible mother. Why make the poor child sleep alone? Why not just go to bed when he does? And I have no good reason, except that I don’t want to go to bed at 9pm every night, and also? I like being able to finish a thought every once in a while. I like being able to get stuff done. I like not having to divide my attention. Because did I mention the nothing I got done earlier?

The other half of you are probably saying Well why isn’t your husband helping? and the answer to that is that he is, just not tonight. We’ve been tag-teaming the bedtime routine, which is great (if somewhat less of a break for me than originally planned) but tonight I’m solo and he’s out gaming. The theory, I guess, is that Happy Fun Baby will not notice the lack of Dada as long as the schedule’s the same. Which is a lovely theory.

I have other theories. Many of them involve Tahiti, and the running away thereto. I hear it’s nice this time of year. Also? I bet they have cable.

technorati tags:sleep training, cosleeping, sleep, cable, television, Tahiti

Happy Valentine’s Day, blogosphere! In case you didn’t know, Valentine’s Day isn’t just a genetically engineered plot device meant to boost flower sales during the slow months of winter. Valentine roots can be traced back as far as the Roman Lupercalia festival, in which young men dressed in loincloths spanked women with strips of goat hide. Of course, then the Christians came along and did away with all the spanking, and that’s how St. Valentine got his name on all the cards. Or something.

Anyway, we’re celebrating by not going out and not having a romantic dinner. We may also not give each other cards or flowers or anything that sparkles. Chez Cranky: the place to go to get your Valentine on.

It’s been an eventful few days since I last updated, and instead of trying to make it all flow together in Zen-like homogeneity, I will once again resort to list-making. You will read the list and rejoice, and all will be right with the world.

And if you don’t like it, I will spank you with a strip of goat hide. You know, for Valentine’s Day.

• Last Thursday was my blogiversery (blog-a-versary?). Want to know how I know? Because my domain name expired! If you noticed that the site was down for much of the weekend (and I know you did), that’s why. Happy Blogiversary to me.
• Saturday night Not So and I left Happy Fun Baby with an actual babysitter and went on an actual date. Woo hoo! We saw Glen Phillips at the Aladdin. Glen (I am so totally on first-name basis with him) was exquisite as always, though not barefoot. This could be because it is the middle of winter. His opening act was a woman named Vienna Teng, who I now love and adore. Brilliant pianist and singer. Glen made noises about touring with her and…someone else, whose name I don’t remember but yay, great…during the summer, and I am so, so there. Assuming we can get a sitter.
• Taxes: done. Waiting for refund, which promises to be rather substantial. Will use to buy practical things like a new laptop for Not So and an Apple TV (see next item for the why).
• Cable: gone! We got sick of plying Comcast with ridiculous amounts of money for ridiculously sub-par service and had them cancel our cable television yesterday. Unfortunately we’ve got to keep them for internet, since they’re the only option for high-speed in our neighborhood (and what is up with that? We’re in North Portland, not the North Pole) but at least we won’t be paying them as much. Also, Happy Fun Baby watches too much TV, and I know I won’t just leave the damn thing off if I have the option. Hooray, good parenting! But so we will be watching a lot of Netflix and downloading a lot of stuff from iTunes. Hence the Apple TV. You see. Because at least that way there won’t be commercials.
• Speaking of Happy Fun Baby, he has discovered that he can scoot various furniture items around the room to facilitate dangerous climbing experiments. Yesterday I happened to look up to see that he had pushed the little ottoman up to the baby gate and had climbed up and slung one leg over the gate in preparation for – what? What, exactly? You’ve got to think these things through, kid. Happily I grabbed him before he went tumbling over and splatted on the hardwood.
• I’m cutting way, way down on sweets in an effort to slow my slide into Screeching Harpy-dom (and hopefully lull my anxiety disorder into remission). This means I’m cooking a lot more, since I can pretty easily make lower-sugar versions of delicious things and trick myself into feeling like I’m not dieting. It’s been one day. So far I have not noticed much of a difference. I know you are surprised.

Now I must go do those productive things that good housewives do while their husbands are at work. None of those things involve goat hide, but wouldn’t the world be a more entertaining place if they did? (By the way: I’m totally just going to go read my rss feeds. But you can pretend I’m scrubbing the baseboards if it would make you feel better.)

technorati tags:comcast, glen phillips, vienna teng, sugar, Valentines Day, Lupercalia

You know what I’m supposed to do during the day? I’m supposed to be an entrepreneur. I’m supposed to track down leads and follow them. I’m supposed to find ways to increase visibility for our new business while reinforcing the integrity of our vision. I’m supposed to be staying on top of design and technology trends and writing weekly articles on our blog.

You know what else I’m supposed to be doing during the day? Going to school. I’m in my third year at AiO and I have a 3.9 GPA, which I’m determined to hang on to until graduation, which is sometime next year. Since it’s an online school, I can set my own hours, provided I log in and post substantively at least 4 days a week. The number of assignments varies from class to class, but it’s typically between 3 and 5 per week. These are all accelerated, 5.5 week classes, so a lot of ground is covered.

Another thing I’m supposed to be doing during the day? Caring for and entertaning my toddler. I want to say this involves a lot of structured play, reading, and outdoor adventures. I want to say that, but it would be a lie. We do a fair amount of unstructured, interactive play and a lot of cuddling, but there’s also a fair amount of “educational” TV and me on my computer while the baby entertains himself. We don’t even have a structured lunchtime – I feed him when he seems hungry, and only bother with the high chair about half the time. If I were a nanny, I’d totally sit myself down and give me a serious talking-to about whether or not I’m in the right line of work.

Also on my list of must-do things every day? Housekeeper. I’ve got to do laundry, dishes, and daily maintenance for a household of three, plus stuff like mopping, dusting, trash taking-out, Diaper Champ changing, vacuuming and litterbox maintenance. Back in the day, I didn’t care so much if, say, the floor was dirty or the dishes were piled up. Now I need the floors to be clean because there’s a little person crawling around on them all day, and I can’t procrastinate on the dishes because there isn’t a later I can leave things for.

Then I have days like today, when I walk into the kitchen, see all the mess everywhere, and think “I QUIT.”  Even thinking that gives me a moment of relief. I don’t have to reprioritize, I don’t have to spend the next few hours running from the baby to the kitchen and back…I just quit. No more housework for me!

Except it doesn’t work that way, does it? It’s not like I can transfer to a cleaner house.

If I could, though? I’d be all OVER that.

technorati tags:housework, parenting, business, juggling, multitasking, I quit

So last night as I was laying in bed, listening to the sound of my eardrums crackling gently to themselves, my left ear – the one that has hurt so badly I was thisclose to shoving a pencil into it just to get rid of some of the pressure oh my god – began to leak. I will say it again, just because it is so icky: my ear leaked. Ears? Are not supposed to leak. I tell you this not so that you will reevaluate your reasons for reading (although, and I am just saying, whoever came here searching for “how do lazy people get strong” is bound to find nothing but disappointment) but because it was such a novel experience. Also because I can hear now, so apparently the leakage was not comprised of vital ear lubricants. Although possibly I am missing gray matter. It’s really hard to say.

To celebrate my new and exciting ear experiences, we spent the afternoon at Baby Loves Disco at the Crystal Ballroom. Baby Loves Disco: wow! Crystal Ballroom: wow!

I’m sorry, did you want something more substantive than that? Okay: we’d never been to the Crystal Ballroom before (why not? I remember thinking before we even moved to Portland that I wanted to see a show there, and do I remember correctly that there have been several shows that I wanted to see, and didn’t? I am lameness, incarnate) and so weren’t prepared for the hugeness of the place. It was a veritable sea of babies, parents, balloons…

One thing I’m going to remember for next time is that dressing Happy Fun Baby like a minature raver would not be out of place at a disco for small children. He was all jeans and Trogdor onesie (which, yes, SO FREAKING COOL, but hardly unusual) while most of the children were decked out in costumes and scarves and glowing bracelets. And honestly, how many opportunities are there to dress your child like a wee little raver? More than you might think, probably, but still.

And the Crystal Ballroom was amazing. The floor? Bounces. I do not know if I can fully convey the fabulousness of the bouncing floor, but I do know that I now wish every floor I encounter has bounce. How much fun would that be? I would exercise a lot more if my living room floor were all sproingy. And yes, sproingy is the word I wanted to use there, not the more pedestrian springy. Shut up or I will ooze my ear at you.

So yes, we danced our little pants off and then put our little pants back on and danced some more. All three of us were somewhat less full of stamina than usual, given the Evil Cold of Doom that has spent the last week making mincemeat of our sinus passages, but we made a good show of it. Happy Fun Baby had a grand time (that’s him, perched on Not So’s shoulders, in the picture). He isn’t so big on the staying-in-one-place (hence the shoulders) but watching a room full of people groove to disco music definitely appealed to him. The only way it could have made him happier would be if the DJ had put on some Justin Timberlake.

Some of my mama friends were there, and I didn’t talk to them nearly as much as I wanted to – I believe I have mentioned already that I am lameness incarnate? Yes. I chatted briefly and then scuttled off to be antisocial and regretted it later, oh yes. This? Is what I do. I need to learn how to play nice with the other mamas so that I set at least some kind of good example for my kid. And I like the other mamas! I like talking to them! I just…feel all big and stupid and uninteresting when I’m around more than one person at a time.

Dude. Apparently the bit that leaked out of my brain last night was the one that dealt with cohesion, because this post is seriously out of control. Want to know what I had for breakfast, too? I go now.

technorati tags:crystal ballroom, baby loves disco, dancing, portland

I have had just about all I can take of myself.- S. N. Behrman

The world is conspiring against me this morning. First, there was the living room, which seemed so promising. I’d asked Not So to do the floor after we went to bed. Something about a floor in the process of being cleaned is irresistible to a toddler. Piles of dirt! Brooms! Shiny shiny mopped areas! You try convincing him to stay put on the couch while all of this obviously fun activity is taking place at his feet. All in all it’s much, much easier (not to mention faster) to clean when the baby is elsewhere.

Not So had, indeed, cleared the floor, which prompted an initial bout of mama-related glee, but once I actually got into the living room it seemed that’s as far as it went. The couch and the chairs were piled with toys, but no actual sweeping or mopping had occurred. Which…sigh. Is fine. But confusing, as was the bewildering decision to leave some of the needing-to-be-washed clothing at the foot of the stairs and some of it on the couch, and the half-eaten bag of goldfish crackers not only open but perched, precariously, on its side at the edge of the desk. The whole thing had an air of arrested progress, as though Not So had suddenly been disappeared in the middle of cleaning. Only he came to bed at some point, so the disappearing must have been temporary.

So I quickly swept while the baby was distracted by the piles of toys, gathered up all the laundry and put away the goldfish crackers and then got started making coffee. By this time Happy Fun Baby had grown weary of the toys and decided to pass the time by eating my mouse. Not cool, Happy Fun Baby! I shouted at him, which I don’t feel good about at all (although he thought it was HI-LARIOUS) and went back into the kitchen to take a handful of Calm pills and a B vitamin and have a moment to get a freaking grip. Because do I want to be the sort of parent who shouts at her child? I do not.

In the desert I saw a creature, naked, bestial, who, squatting upon the ground, Held his heart in his hands, And ate of it. I said, “Is it good, friend?” “It is bitter — bitter,” he answered; “But I like it Because it is bitter, And because it is my heart.”- Stephen Crane, “III in The Black Riders and Other Tales”

The best way to get over an irrational bout of anger is to kiss a baby. Preferably my baby, since he is so imminently kissable. He also has the added bonus of being particularly nearby. We ate some cereal, and we watched some Wonder Pets, and we peeled an index card off the desk where it had apparently become stuck because of a heretofore unknown incident with a water glass, and then we decided to take a video of the aforementioned kissable baby, who was being unmentionably adorable and babbling in a way that causes my heart to burst with the cute.

At this time it was revealed that the new camera had been put…somewhere. So we tore apart the room with a mounting sense of frustration – finding, as we did, that our phone (and did you notice that we have lapsed into the plural?) was quite dead and in need of a charge, which reminded us that Not So had mentioned the batteries on the camera dying yesterday when he was taking some test shots.

Nothing, of course, begins at the time you think it did.- Lillian Hellman, “An Unfinished Woman”

The batteries were, in fact, on the charger, but the camera was still nowhere to be found. I eventually located it on a shelf in the kitchen. So, okay. Batteries inserted. Camera ready to go. Or…was it? Apparently being battery-less all night had wiped its internal memory, because before I could get it going I had to re-enter the date and time info. By this time, of course, Happy Fun Baby had grown weary of prattling adorably and was sitting on the floor chewing on the end of his broom. Which, while cute, does not a compelling video make.

It doesn’t really matter whether you grip the arms of the dentist’s chair or let your hands lie in your lap. The drill drills on.- CS Lewis, “A Grief Observed”

So, yes. That’s been my morning. Some days you just have to take a look at it all and roll your eyes, because that sound you hear is the laughter of the gods, and it’s not going away any time soon. Not that I believe in god, mind you, but I sure as hell believe in schadenfreude.

All quotes from:The Quote Cache

technorati tags:schadenfreude, housework, anger management, quotes

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Santa was good to me this year, if by “Santa” you mean Not So. He got me a sewing machine (I’m thinking of calling her ‘Esme,’ but Not So suggests that it is a boy and should be called ‘Eduardo,’ because we are big, big dorks)(points if you get the ref). He also got me a blender – this was the year of the housewares, apparently – which I’ve been wanting for, oh, ever, and a new camera to replace the one that went all wonky and decided that all colors were purple.

I hear you, by the way. You are saying something to the effect of “A new camera? But you have the D70! You do not need a new camera! Also, children are starving.” To which I reply “Yes. I am obviously part of the problem. Also, I will gladly give them my old Canon, which I hear makes a lovely stew.” I am a firm believer in the point-and-shoot for spontaneous picture-taking moments. Do you honestly believe I am going to lug the D70 every time we leave the house? Because, no. The baby, he is heavy enough. Also, I am lazy.

And the D70, while rocking like a rocking thing in all other respects, does not do video. The little cameras take surprisingly good video clips and are much easier to wrangle than the camcorder. The upload is simple as well – there is no searching for the adapter cable, hooking it up, plugging it in, converting the video. There is just plug. I like things that have only one step.

(All of these, including the self-portrait at left, were taken with the new camera. I am, as always, blisteringly photogenic.)

The new point-and-shoot is a Nikon Coolpix L3. It is very, very wee. Hey! That made a rhyme, and I could follow it with a ditty about how I do not know I am a poet, but I will not. Merry Christmas!

The camera’s great, but it has what I have learned to think of as “Ugly Screen.” That is, everything on the preview screen on the back of the camera is rendered in uglyvision, and it isn’t until the shots are uploaded that it’s possible to tell which ones are good. Also, it handles color in a way that can only be described as “interesting.” I look like a thug in most of the pictures, but my eyes? Very blue. It’s a trade-off. All hail Adobe Lightroom, that’s all I have to say.

It does excellent video, though. I am all about the love for the L3 video. I could compose odes to it, but I won’t, because…lazy. Instead I will let you be the judge: check out the little test video we shot (before we set it to max resolution, even). Also, my kid? Cute.

technorati tags:nikon coolpix l3, coolpix, christmas, gifts, camera, snapshot, video

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Christmastime just isn’t the same as it was when I was little. Sure, it was always kind of disappointing, seeing as we were dirt poor and often received gifts that still bore dirty price stickers from the Salvation Army. Sure, gifts from our dad were usually things he wanted and would commandeer the minute they were unwrapped, under the guise of “showing us how it works.” Sure, I was usually in trouble for some reason and had only been taken off restriction as a special treat for the holiday. But man, did we have Christmas spirit.

We’d spend the weeks leading up to the holiday wearing bells on our shoes and practicing some sort of Christmas pageant. (Hello, poor folk have to make their own fun!) I’d invariably “direct,” which meant telling my brother and sister exactly what to say and getting horribly frustrated when they didn’t follow my vision. Heh. I was a party as a kid. We’d sing (constantly, and badly) and watch endless Christmas specials on TV and put tinsel on everything.

These days I’m just not feeling it. Here it is, Christmas Eve, and I can barely muster up a “Bah, humbug.” Not So made his traditional Italian Christmas Eve dinner, which was delicious but so unlike the lovely White Trash holiday feasts of my youth. I don’t even remember the specifics of my holiday meals, but I know they involved potatoes. How can we have a holiday without potatoes?

It’s not the food, I know, but how do I generate excitement for the holiday when it just feels like another day? I don’t get a vacation from work. There’s no snow or visiting family. It’s just us, hanging around the house, trying to keep the baby from throwing a fit because his molars are coming in and apparently this engenders a great deal of wailing. Oh, the wailing. Maybe the wailing is trampling my holiday spirit, but I have a feeling it wasn’t hanging around in the first place.

We’re in this weird in-between state as far as holidays are concerned. Usually we spend Christmas with Not So’s family, simply because Not So has a family who gets together for holidays and I really, really don’t. They do this elaborate dinner/breakfast/gifts/more dinner ritual that I always found both comforting and foreign. But it was a thing, you know?

Last year we had Christmas here, but since we’d just had a baby on December 13th, Christmas was sort of anticlimactic. Gifts? Whatever. I just gave birth. And then we snuggled the baby some more.

So this is really the first time we’ve been genuinely on our own for the holiday, and we’re not really sure what to do with ourselves. Do we go all out and decorate, even though it’s only us? (The answer to that is, obviously, no.) Do we sing Christmas carols and watch Christmas specials and gaze beatifically at each other in the glow of the Christmas lights? (Again. Really not.) Or do we sit around like good little atheists, one of us on the computer, the other playing on the PS2?

I hope that by this time next year I’m busy baking Christmas cookies and teaching my kid to sing the in-between verses of Rudolph. We’ll have Not So’s Italian Christmas dinner and then we’ll have some suitably White Trash dessert (like a marshmallow pie or something) and then we’ll snuggle together on the couch to watch The Nightmare Before Christmas. And everyone will live happily ever after.

technorati tags:holiday, christmas spirit, white trash

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